August 24, 2004

Spotting Astroturf Real has messed with their bitch-o-site again (freedomofchoicemusic.org). You can't see the signers on their petition anymore (and the number of signers has magically shrunk to about 2275), and you can read an utterly disingenuous piece of propaganda masquerading as a faux Q&A session with Rob Glazer. Sample disinformation: "You buy a CD and you can play it back on any CD player.  That’s the way it’s been for decades.  Now Apple has tried to change the rules on consumers, but without warning."

I really enjoyed Jack Miller [of As the Apple Turns]'s call out on this- he hits all the right notes. " In other words 'sit down, shut up, and listen to us whine incessantly because we weren't the ones who invented the iPod.'" Its great that we have people spotting fake blogs and astroturfing, but as this practice becomes more and more ubiquitous, how are we gonna differentiate between faux and authentic messages? I'm in advertising myself, and I am really intrigued by the blurring of traditional ad placement and more subversive stuff, but as a consumer, I want to know who is behind the message/opinion/review. Are suspicions like mine going to be enough to limit this kind of advertising? Or will people just accept it?

posted by es el Queso 20 years ago
  • Hey, if it's good enough for the Preznint, it's good enough for Real. The whole Freedom of choice thing is pretty damn funny though. Let's put up a board and collect signatures because we completely misread our market, then when that market rips us a new one on that board, let's hide the comments and just list the signatures. Tools.
  • To think I have lived to see fake grass roots. /so bee-mused
  • If you intentionally buy a song with DRM on it, you are just as stupid if you buy it from Real or I tunes. Both the Apple and the Real people need to realize this.
  • Are suspicions like mine going to be enough to limit this kind of advertising? Or will people just accept it? No. Yes. Don't worry, bees, everything always makes a comeback. We'll eventually get to see 'real' grass roots again. And it will seem such an original idea to the young'uns. Ho-hum.
  • Are suspicions like mine going to be enough to limit this kind of advertising? Or will people just accept it? No. Yes. Don't worry, bees, everything always makes a comeback. We'll eventually get to see 'real' grass roots again. And it will seem such an original idea to the young'uns. Ho-hum.
  • Crap.
  • I'm in advertising myself Off with 'ees head! I hate Illinois Nazis Advertising.
  • yeah, well, i like paying my bills and eating... but i'm looking for a new job if anyone needs a graphic designer/photographer/copywriter/project manager/art director/creative director/bottle washer. how's that drumming thing working out? :)
  • I need a job where people pay me to tell them what I think. Anything like that in the want ads?
  • I Pete was a baker and civil servant most of my his life, before taking up the drums again. I'm He's now on a very fun tour with Merseybeat style groups and wouldn't change a thing. Advertising is, at it's core, about trickery and crass manipulation in my, (pete_best's), opinion. It always bothers me when bright talented people do it, I have friends that are in it, but I sure wish they weren't. *sigh*
  • heh, the closest i get to trickery and crass manipulation is picking a photo with the model who has the largest breasts to put in an ad. since all i advertise are convertible sofabeds, mattresses, slip-covers and pillows, i rarely get a chance to be tricky, much less crass or manipulative. nor do i have the budget for it. No "you're gonna die if you don't buy my product." more along the lines of "its comfortable, useful and well priced, whaddya think?" Any updates on Stu Sutcliffe?
  • heh, the closest i get to trickery and crass manipulation is picking a photo with the model who has the largest breasts to put in an ad. Wanna swap jobs?
  • "You buy a CD and you can play it back on any CD player. That’s the way it’s been for decades. Now Apple has tried to change the rules on consumers, but without warning." I totally dislike Real, but I agree with this piece of "disinfo." This is the same argument for getting video game made on a cross-platform format. And the few times I've been into the Apple store at the mall, looking at ipods, they've never even hinted that the ipod is cripple(hard)ware, and only plays music from certain sources.
  • The iPod will play any MP3/AIFF/WAV you throw at it. Granted, if you want to do the whole online music thing, you're stuck with the iTunes Music Store unless you want to buy/record/rip. I kinda see it as more akin to buying a cassette and then complaining that you can't play it on a CD player - they've both got music, but you can't shove a tape in a CD player.
  • I am thinking you may have missed the point of the quote Mr. K? Apple is not in the CD business and hasn't done anything to CDs. That statement is just baseless FUD. As for the iPod, it will play back ALL of your CD/LP/cassette/8-track/reel-to-reels as long as they have been encoded into MP3, (non-DRM) AAC, AIFF, or the Apple lossless codec- none of which causes any crippling at all. the iPod feature that is vaguely restrictive is that if you want to buy digital music with DRM in it, only music from the iTunes Music Store will work on the iPod. Not Real's, or DRM-impregnated WMAs. So, if you have something that you really want to hear on your iPod which is encoded with an incompatible DRM scheme/format, all you have to do burn the file to a CD and reimport it as an MP3 and you're all aces. Real's position is analogous to Sun complaining that your Solaris version of Solitaire won't work on your Windows PC, while all sorts of freeware versions of the game work just fine, as well as versions of Solitaire written especially for Windows. The whole argument is a tempest in a teapot. Real's just cranky/embarrassed cause their substandard products are getting their asses whipped.
  • damn, what mrg said, only much more succinctly. better analogy, too.
  • Real's position is analogous to Sun complaining that your Solaris version of Solitaire won't work on your Windows PC, while all sorts of freeware versions of the game work just fine, as well as versions of Solitaire written especially for Windows. I'm not convinced. If MS did its best to prevent Sun's Solitaire from working on Windows PCs, that would be wrong. Or let's say Microsoft resisted Apple's attempt to port iTunes to Windows, or if MS released an update to break iTunes functionality. Should Apple suck it up and stick to Macs? Besides, we're not talking about one version of one videogame. We're talking about the whole of legit downloadable music that'll work with an iPod, the most popular mp3 player. If that's a tempest in a teapot, it's a rather large teapot. I see this as more akin to Compaq's move to break up IBM's monopoly on the PC market by reverse-engineering the BIOS. Yeah, sure, you had Apple as competition, and I suppose you could have used non-computerized alternatives for any given task, but who's going to claim that what Compaq did was bad for the PC market or for society-at-large? I hate Real, and their player, and I love Apple, and my iPod, and I wouldn't plunk down my money for Real's service, but I don't see anything wrong with the actions they've taken. Real is trying to increase the scope of compatibility. That strikes me as a good thing.
  • Real is trying to increase the scope of compatibility. Part of me agrees with that sentiment, but a larger part of me says: It's Real - they've been foisting their inferior streaming format on the world for years now, and playing the same protecionism game with their own stuff. They deserve to go out business. Any pretense that their doing this "for the consumers" is a real load of manure.
  • Stu died man. Stu died. Paul's on bass now.